It’s healing to have a role focused on increasing access to resources that I never had, especially ones that facilitate self-exploration and empathy building through play.

September's LibraryReads list is out, including top pick The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell. The Aurora Awards, Splatterpunk Awards, and Sir Julius Vogel Awards winners are announced. NEH announces new grants. Librarian Lynn Lobash is quoted in a NYT article ”Choose Your Own Literary Adventure.”  In adaptation news, Jenna Bush Hager and her company will adapt Jamie Ford's The Many Daughters of Afong Moy as a series and Constance Wu will produce a series adaptation of Ling Ling Huang’s forthcoming novel Natural Beauty, due out in April 2023. 

The Patmos Library in Jamestown Township, MI, lost a critical millage renewal in early August as the result of a “Vote No” campaign orchestrated by a local conservative coalition. Members of the group, the Jamestown Conservatives, object to LGBTQIA+-themed material on the library’s shelves, and have been vocal about their displeasure. As a result, two directors have resigned in the past few months.

The attack on Salman Rushdie dominates book news. Overkill by Sandra Brown leads holds this week. Two LibraryReads and four Indie Next picks publish this week. People's book of the week is I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Interviews arrive with James Patterson, Grace Ellis, and Amanda Jayatissa. Apple TV+ completes casting for the adaptation of by Bonnie Garmus's Lessons in Chemistry. Plus, Vanity Fair explores the uneasy friendship between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, through a "trove of never-published archival material."

There is more news about book banning. Interviews abound with authors including conversations with Edgar Gomez, James Tynion IV, Jennette McCurdy, Sarah Thankam Mathews, Gabrielle Zevin, K-Ming Chang, Emma Hooper, Nona Willis Aronowitz, and Jesse Green. There will be an adaptation of Dennis Tafoya’s book, Dope Thief.

The August EarlyWord GalleyChat is out. Book apps like ProWritingAid and Serial Reader are featured in the news this week. At the top of the best sellers lists are Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas by Shea Ernshaw, and Reckoning by Catherine Coulter. Author interviews highlight the work of Susanna Hoffs, Jennette McCurdy, Keith Corbin, Paul Holes, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and Sabine Hossenfelder. There is adaptation news for Stephen King’s The Regulators, Michael Mann’s Heat 2, and The Awoken by Katelyn Monroe Howes.

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Dr. Kit Heyam tops the September Loanstars list. The 2022 Varuna & Scribe Fellowship recipients are announced. Heat 2 continues to sizzle. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-likes for The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell. The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings gets reviewed. Interviews arrive with Belinda Huijuan Tang, Iman Hariri-Kia, Nona Willis Aronowitz, Dana Milbank, Jennette McCurdy, Tess Gunty, and Mohsin Hamid. Plus, Monte Burke's 2012 sports biography, 4th and Goal: One Man's Quest to Recapture His Dream, will get a feature adaptation. 

#NoTechforICE was started by the national Latinx and Chicanx social justice advocacy group Mijente in 2018, when it became clear that government agencies such as ICE and CBP were purchasing public, private, and commercial data to gather information to aid in the sweeps and deportations of undocumented immigrants. Two companies that have entered into contracts with ICE, LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters—which owns LexisNexis competitor Westlaw—are staples of college and university database subscriptions, and the campaign has caught the attention of academic librarians nationwide.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough has died at 89. Rick Lai wins the 2022 Munsey Award. The 2022 WSFA Small Press Award finalists are announced. Tom Doherty Associates will be rebranded as Tor Publishing Group. Heat 2 by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner gets hot. Plus, Outlander actor Sam Heughan has a memoir coming out this fall.